Ipswich loanee who was unreal in McKenna’s 1st season is now in Non-League
da bwin： The Premier League season is nine games old now, and while Ipswich Town are still without their first win, they have every chance of staying up.
da casino： Despite already facing Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Brighton & Hove Albion, the Tractor Boys remain above the relegation zone on four points, and while there have been a few suspect performances at the back, they’ve looked reasonably threatening in attack.
However, survival is an extraordinarily tough objective for the Suffolk side as, even though they signed several talented players over the summer, Kieran McKenna still has a number of players in his squad who were there when he took charge of the club in League One.
However, they are without one of the team’s top goal-scorers in the league that season, as his career has taken on a very different trajectory from that of Ipswich over the last couple of years.
Ipswich's rapid rise
This season is Ipswich’s first back in the Premier League for 22 years, and just a few years ago it looked like they wouldn’t be back in the top-flight for some time.
However, following the sacking of Paul Cook in December 2021, the club appointed the inexperienced McKenna as his replacement in what was the Northern Irishman’s first managerial role, and to say it was a masterstroke would be an understatement.
He would stabilise the club in that first campaign, leading them to an 11th-placed finish before mounting a promotion charge the following campaign that saw the Tractor Boys finish second with a mammoth points total of 98 and a frankly ridiculous goal difference of plus 66, which was unsurprisingly the best in the league.
Now, the team would have been forgiven for just looking to establish themselves in the Championship the following season and build from there, but they didn’t do that. Instead, as he had the previous year, McKenna led his side on an incredible promotion charge that once again saw them finish in second place and secure Ipswich’s place in the Premier League for the first time in many fans’ lives.
Amazingly, there are still many players from League One in the current squad, such as, Sam Morsy, Wes Burns and Conor Chaplin, but someone who is no longer in the team is Macauley Bonne.
Macauley Bonne's post Ipswich career
It might be a name some Ipswich fans have forgotten in the blur that’s been the last few years, but during McKenna’s first season at Portman Road, Bonne ended the campaign as the club’s joint top goalscorer in League One alongside Burns, with 12 a piece.
However, the Ipswich-born poacher was only at the club on a season-long loan from Queens Park Rangers, so he returned to West London in the summer.
His contract was terminated by mutual consent the following January as he struggled to make an impact at Loftus Road, and the subsequent years would see the Zimbabwean international play for Charlton Athletic, Gillingham and Cambridge United as he struggled to find form.
Bonne’s senior career
Club
Appearances
Goals
Assists
Leyton Orient
91
45
9
Colchester United
84
15
1
Charlton
56
14
2
Ipswich Town
46
12
4
QPR
44
3
1
Gillingham
31
5
2
Cambridge
16
1
0
Southend United
10
0
2
Lincoln City
8
1
0
Woking
7
0
0
All Stats via Transfermarkt
Things got worse for the 29-year-old in July of this year as he was released by The Gills, and for a few months, he was a free agent until he dropped down another division to join non-league side Southend United on a one-year deal.
Unfortunately, the former Ipswich ace has seriously struggled for form at the former Football League giants so far this season and, as things stand, has just two assists to his name in ten appearances, which isn’t the sort of form that will see him retained next year.
Ultimately, while he was great for Ipswich and McKenna in the Northern Irishman’s first season at Portman Road, the last few years haven’t been kind to Bonne, and if his form doesn’t improve, he might not make it back to the Football League.
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